Older brotherNurse Julie McFadden shared that the three most common regrets of patients in the last minutes of life are relationships, health and how to enjoy life.
Faced with death, people often reconsider their lives and experience many emotions. Each person has different final moments of life. In an interview with surgeon Karan Rajan, a member of the British National Health Service (NHS), nurse Julie McFadden, known as Hospice Julie on social networks, revealed three things that many people regret. The saddest thing is when facing the moment of death.
With more than 15 years of palliative care experience, McFadden said end-of-life conversations often revolve around things patients took for granted while alive, most commonly not appreciating health in youth.
“What I hear most often is that they regret not knowing how to appreciate their physical strength. They wish they had understood sooner how wonderful a healthy body is,” she said.
The second most common regret patients have is “working too much.” They often wish that they didn’t spend their whole lives at work, trying to spend more time for themselves.
Finally, she revealed that dying people often regret their relationships. They wish they had contacted an old friend sooner, gotten back into a relationship, or not held so much hatred toward specific people. Many patients also revealed that they were too concerned with what others thought, forgetting how to enjoy their personal lives.
Illustration of a person in the last moments of his life. Image: Telegraph
Dr. Rajan shared the story of a young patient who made him realize the finiteness of life. This person was hospitalized for pancreatitis. Within three hours, she had to go to the intensive care room and was intubated and on a ventilator. The next day, she died.
“That made me think, I’m 34 years old now. Life can pass by in the blink of an eye. So don’t take it lightly. Sometimes, we tend to live as if we’re immortal,” he said. .
In a previous YouTube video, McFadden said that a person’s last moments of life can be “chaotic and not beautiful.” They experience pain, difficulty breathing, agitation, confusion. She offers two tips for avoiding “chaos,” whether the person who died is a friend, family or yourself. The first is to learn and “know what to expect, know what is normal, what is not normal”. Then, people should talk openly with themselves, their doctors, nurses, and families about their feelings, needs, and ways of support.
It is important to “understand” that a loved one will “change a lot” as they near the end of their life. Similarly, if it is your final journey of life, it is important to be mentally prepared, understanding that the final days will be quite different from what has come before.
“You won’t be able to do all the things you used to do. You won’t be able to live completely independently. That’s hard to accept. But learning about them now will help you prepare so it doesn’t feel so chaotic.” when it happens,” she added.